Shuffle off to Buffalo
CORSA International Convention
Part 4: Rally
July 28, 2006
Buffalo saved its rainy weather for the rally. We entered two cars. The plan was for me, Allison (13) and Seth (11) to take the red Corsa coupe, which hasn't been running as smoothly as the convertible, and for Joy, Jacob (15) and Caitlin (8) to take the convertible. We changed the plan when I remembered that on the way to Buffalo the odometer died in the convertible. Joy and I switched cars and I figured I would do my best without an odometer.
The event was staged about a half hour drive from the hotel. Seth took this picture of our coupe out of the rear window of the convertible on the way to the event:
Here, contestants start to stage. As is usually the case, there is a touring class and a competition class. We, of course, were touring.
This shot shows Joy joining the line of cars at the park where the rally started. Staging actually went pretty quickly compared to some events I have participated in in the past.
In order to make up for the DOA odometer, Allison handled the instructions while Seth worked a stopwatch. We made a chart of elapsed times for different speeds on the way to the event. This actually worked pretty well and we found the lack of an odometer to be not too much of a handicap. We were gridded last due to our mechanical difficulties, so I didn't expect to see any Corvairs behind us, but at one point I saw our coupe in my rear view mirror. Joy and the kids blew past us to make up time....
The course took us through some absolutely gorgeous countryside, almost made better by the overcast and rising fog off the hills. Unfortunately, it is hard to take pictures and do the rally at the same time, but Allie did get some pictures worth sharing, which are below:
Toward the end of the rally, things brightened up a bit, and we were doing well enough on the second half of the event that we stopped for a minute to drop the top on the convertible.
After we returned to the hotel we piled into the Suburban and made a quick trip to Lackawanna to visit the Our Lady of Victory Basilica. It was a beautiful cathedral and I got a chance to play with my tilt/shift lens; I still have a lot of learning to do about perspective control but I did get a few nice shots.
That's it for convention events for us. The rest of the family has headed down to the pool, so I am going to upload and post this page on Virtual Vairs and then go join them. Tomorrow is the drive home; Jake has to catch a flight to Orlando Saturday evening so we are skipping the econorun and the banquet. At least, that's my excuse this year. Didn't make those events at the last two conventions I went to, either.
It always seems to go so fast....
Return to Norman C. Witte Personal Web Page Command Center